I've taken a long hiatus from the game and I was hoping someone who still regularly plays could fill me in on the best routes for:

Exp

DE farming

Item farming
Bonus: Best combination of the three

I'm sad to see that many of my friends who used to play regularly have now been offline for xx amount of days, but I'm hoping there are still good players in the community who can provide helpful feedback. Thanks!

This run has been demonstrated to have the best xp/hour for this build.

For most other classes, I feel that they have slower movespeed, skip elites less easily and take a few seconds to ramp up to full DPS. Personally I prefer to farm act 1 with those classes. My current route of choice is to go CotA (1 stack) - FoM, getting stacks as I go. Some notes on why I do this run:

FoM trash mobs are easier to gather than those in Act 2, when you are able to gather a large number of mobs before engaging you save yourself from having to wind up your damage for each mob you encounter.

if you have a crypt spawn in FoM, go for it, if not you can clear HoA2 if your gear/build/team can do it (I skip it when soloing on my WD, but if I am/have a wizard I can freeze dark berserkers so it's safer).

I find that spending several minutes running around Festering Woods and Leoric's manor looking around for elites detracts from time spent clearing trash dense zones, particularly since it's mostly just FoM and possibly a few others.

I tend to see drops in XP/hour when I tag on weeping hollow at the end of the run, meaning it's better to start a new run than to clear it

Could somebody explain how you're supposed to do VotA (5 stacks) - Oasis - Ruins - Channels - Desolate Sands - Storm Halls. and keep the Vota checkpoint? Like what quest do you start with? Everytime I go into the archives from the desolate sands i get a checkpoint and that overrides my portal to vota.

Imho the most efficient run (experience/loot-wise) for most characters is:

Get 5 stacks in Festering woods, if not go Leorics get your 5th there. Then follow the basic FoM > Wheeping hollow. And thats it, rince and repeat :).

For DE farming you want Vault of the Assassin in act 2.

And I think this goes without saying, but if I were you I would invest some time in finding some people to groupfarm with on a regular basis. Ideally you want a balanced / diverse group of 4 people to do these runs with as the total 30% magic find / experience bonus really adds up the longer you farm.

TLDR: Groupfarm > Solofarm.

Edit: A balanced group being: Monk / WD / Wiz / Barb - DH. A good Cyclone strike monk can significantly increase your groups performance, the same can be said for a WD and CM Wizard.

When farming for DE I suggest you don't use it yet. DE will be used for the Mystic enchants and (probably) item crafting in the xpac. You may be able to use DE to craft ilvl 70 gear when the xpac drops.

Yes ofc, ppl will still be buying items, or if you find an upgrade for your self.As for items to pick up. Always pick up yellow jewelry (such as rings and amulets), lvl 61 one-handers, and maybe gloves and bracers. And ofc all of them awsome legendaries. Kappa.